Better than the real thing
by Tafferling
Summary: A somewhat Resident Evil Halloween fluff piece, starring Chris Redfield, some lame attempt at an alternate costume, and good things meant to last.


" **N** ever?" He asks, his brows all slanted up and a careful Redfield-frown pulling his lips the other way.

She shakes her head.

"Not even when you were a kid?"

"Not even while I was a kid. Halloween just wasn't ever very big, I suppose. Plus." Her voice drops a little and she gives a theoretical shudder. "People."

"Hm." Chris looks away briefly, his eyes cutting across the kitchen like he's on a mission and mapping out the details of it. And he probably is, since whenever isn't he set to do one thing or the other? He was a man who'd dropped _procrastination_ from his vocabulary and declared war on all things lazy. "I'm people too," he adds after a moment of contemplating whatever that's started turning over behind his muddy blue eyes, and then he's back to looking at her.

She smiles. Involuntarily. Her cheeks flare a little too, get all warm. She's got no idea how he still manages to do that. Make her blush. Make her feel like they'd just met and were still awkwardly orbiting each other.

He glances at his wristwatch, so that probably means his mind is set. "Come on. I'm taking you out." Yeah. Definitely set.

Up he gets and she gawks at him. "We're both a little old for trick or treating, no?"

"Not what I have in mind." A hand hooks around her elbow as he passes by and he tugs her off the chair with the same insistence he does about everything else in his life. The sort that doesn't really give room for argument.

 **S** he's got no idea where he's taking her, and when prompted all she gets in turn is a grunt. So she stares out into the light show that rolls by past the passenger window as he drives them through the evening with its heavy serving of _shit, it's dark already._ There's lots of people out. Kids too. Little things all at about hip size, and she's pretty sure most of them human. Even if tonight they don't much look it.

She sighs. Leans back in the seat, and her head lolls to the side with her cheek squashed to the leather and her eyes turned to him. The lights out there cast odd shadows through the windshield. Deep ones. Old ones. They cut themselves on him and bleed around his strong nose and hard cheekbones.

Of course he notices her staring, and throws her a brief look. His lips quirk up and he smiles into the day and a half-or-so worth of stubble on his chin.

"You'll love it," he reassures her.

"If you say so, Redfield."

"I say so."

 **E** ventually, the lights out there start to fade, and they roll through the pitch black with the cone of their headlights chewing at the night in front of them. There'd be a moon up there, somewhere, but it's been overcast and ugly lately, so all they get is a mess of dark grey bubbling in the skies. And because bad weather can go fuck itself, she's started to (badly) sing along to _Still I Fly,_ her lungs not quite up to the task and easily exhausted by trying to hold a note for too long. No way he's _not_ regretting having made her leave the cozy house tonight. It's gonna be damn cold out there and she _hates_ the cold.

But he keeps driving, all up to until there are lights again. Red ones and orange ones, and the trucks swings towards them. _THWUMP_ it goes and rocks as the wheels leave tarmac and set down on packed earth and gravel instead. The lights line a path that ends at a wide open field. A field full of parked cars, stalls, lights, and creatively stacked hay bales.

"Wha—?" She peers over the dash while he lets the truck roll to a stop at the end of the line of parked cars.

"Never been to a corn maze either?" He yanks the key and the engine turns over with a last little _hrrm._

"Nuh-huh."

 **A** s she expected, things are rather cold out here, and she shivers in the jacket and squishes herself close to him the moment they start walking. He complies, wraps an arm around her, and smiles down at her when she tries to glower daggers at him. It's a rueful little smile, but his eyes give away that he's amused. They crinkle at the corners.

It's difficult to keep cold after she notices that, since it gets her heart going and fills her stomach with warm and goopy love.

A corn maze, as it turns out, is just that. A maze made of corn. Mostly withered corn, mind you, still thick enough to make it difficult to see through though. This maze is ringed with hay bales and a few stalls where folks sell drinks (warm ones!) and food (warm too!)— and apparently also costumes, because he stops at one of them, fingers already counting out dollar bills, and exchanges paper for a bag of…

"Pirates?" She asks as he hands her the bag for opening.

Chris shrugs.

She pulls out a hat. A wide brimmed and badly made thing, and he takes it from her and plants it on her head. It sort of fits. _Sort_ of. It keeps falling into her eyes, so she tilts it back at a weird angle and watches him from under that mess.

Chris picks out another item from the bag: An eye patch. And without much fuss, he sticks the thing on before handing the rest of the stuff back to the stall owner.

"Harr-Harr?" She says as he snatches for her arm to stick it through his so he can lead her through the people and the lights and then some more people. Though she can't say the eyepatch doesn't look neat on him.

 **T** he maze itself is— mazy. And it's more the people around that end up being the entertainment. Them— with their way more intricate and impressive costumes than their shared hat and eyepatch combo— and the wonderful smelling cup of warm mulled wine between her hands. Overall, she thinks it isn't so bad, even if she's not a fan of the noises and the bits where it gets crowded. He's good at making things like that not matter. Or at least to make them matter less.

Though her thoughts snatch on how _he_ stands it. The costumes. The noises. She's seen him flinch at New Years when the fireworks go up. Seen him actively avoid things on the telly that involve zombies, even if he'll not go out of his way to make a big deal out of it. _I prefer the classics,_ he'd say, and she'd not buy it. Halloween though, that doesn't seem to count. Maybe it's an American thing? Bits of childhood memory that outweighs what'd come after? Something way more significant than the real monsters that'd hounded him for sixteen years?

She's about to ask him, when a sad little wail draws their attention around the next corner, where they find a group of kids. Three of them. A turtle (probably of the ninja variety), a fucked-if-she-knew-kinda-looks-like-the-flash-after-a-bender, and _oh dear lord._ A little BSAA soldier. Shoulder insignia and toy gun with a red cap included. Though she figures the BSAA frowns on beat up sneakers for footwear.

And all three boys are sniffling. _Crying._ One has got snot all over his chin already, and the turtle cried streaks through its green face.

"Hey, what's up guys?" Chris is already down on his haunches, while she hovers awkwardly behind him and kind of wants to start heading into the other direction.

She's useless with these things. Absolutely inept. He's— not so much. He salutes to the little BSAA soldier. When he shows him his tags, it's like the world got turned upside down for all three, and they tears stop coming and the little kid-toothed smiles are on with a vengeance.

Turns out they got lost. Which, really now, they ought to have been expecting in a maze. So, naturally, Chris offers to be the hero, because heroes do the hero thing, no matter how small the deed might be. Or how big. One day you might escort a duckling of a highway, the next you're laying down your life because someone sneezed up another A-through-Z virus strain somewhere.

Typical.

"Okay, we'll get you out of here," he says.

"Can you even see though?" asks the turtle, and she snorts. But they're kids, so maybe she shouldn't be judging.

"Well, I don't have to." Chris turns to her, the one still showing eye getting all crinkly at the corners again. And he's kind of staring. Pointedly. _Expectedly_.

"What?"

He pats his shoulder and quirks a brow at her. "Help me out?"

She chokes down a laugh, and with the halfway done cup of mulled wine in one hand, steps up to him and grabs for his with the other. One moment she's on the ground, the next she's coming up over the tall corn field while perched on his shoulder, the air a lot more chilly up here. Though he's got his fingers entwined with hers and he isn't letting go, which really makes up for that little oversight of him forgetting she doesn't like the cold. Plus, she still has the mulled wine precariously balanced in her left hand, careful not to spill it on the top of his head. Which she bends down quickly for and kisses. The top of his head, not the wine, mind you. He squeezes her hand in turn.

The sky cleared out a little, she notes. Stars wink from between blobs of fat clouds, and the moon bleeds through with a shapeless, silver glow. Chilly or not, it's _nice_ up here on his shoulders. His steps are even. Steady. And he steers real nice with each soft tug of her hand that tells him left or right when they reach another bend.

And just like a bunch of little ducklings in real need of an escort over some horrible highway, the kids follow him. Hang on to every word he says as he tells them about some harmless, even if borderline spooky, things he's seen and done.

After a while, she figures this whole going out for Halloween thing really wasn't about her at all. Or even if it'd been, it wasn't her who'd needed that. Needed that little bit of normal, without any _real_ horrors that'd come spilling from the fields. Just him and her and some more memories to make that'd outweigh whatever might come next.


End file.
